Tuesday, May 31, 2005

a detour from Japan and back in time: train wreck in IL

my father just sent me this image from my youth in LaGrange, Illinois... I have only the vaguest memories of this because I was extremely young, but I liked the picture anyway, so I thought I'd post it here:(I don't know about you, but as I look at this picture, I'm wondering, did anyone ask the dark figure with the black cane where -he- was right before the accident? (he looks like a train-wreck causing villain, somehow, and if you zoomed in closer I think he'd have a moustache)).

no, it's not actually backward; the dude painted that one car in mirror image. if you look -real- close, you can see that the license plate on the cop car looks -backward- where it's reflected in the mirror. if it was a mirror-flipped photo, the reflection of the license plate would be doubly-flipped, making it appear to be -forward-. do you follow me?

now, the real question is -why- did they paint that car backward? deliberate sabotage? it's possible. wonder if it had anything to do with the accident...

I was there shortly after this happened since I lived in Brookfield about 8 blocks away. The train wreck took place in the mid 70's. The wreck was caused when one of the cars wheels jumped the tracks about 200 yards before the bridge while the train was moving around 50mph. The jumped wheels cut through the rail ties causing the rails to split apart on the bridge. This caused the cars to fall into the roadway below and crash into the bridge embankment causing the pile up of cars. The scene seemed surreal as I looked at these massive train cars just piled up.

Very cool image that brought back memories of this amazing huge wreck!